Evaluation Question 3

Production Company- Lionsgate

Why would your company want to make your film?

Lionsgate have supported and produced independent films as well as mini-major films. I feel that Lionsgate would be interested in our thriller as we would not need a colossal budget, and the filming would be fairly simple. Plus, we would want to use clever advertising campaigns to create awareness of our film, however, we would not want to spend too much money, therefore, the profit generated from the film could be quite high.

Similar Films To Yours?

In the past Lionsgate have produced several titles which focus on a thrilling horror element, films such as 'Saw' and 'The Descent' are examples of these type of films. While in our early pre-production stage of our thriller we decided that we would like to include horror elements within our films, however after some deliberation we feel that perhaps the films could be more successful if we focused entirely on the thrilling element. With this in mind, I researched some films similar to our own, that either focus on the claustrophobic or thrilling elements that ours has.

1. '127 Hours'

'127 Hours' is a film produced by Lionsgate starring James Franco, the film explores the true story of Aron Ralstone's mountain climbing accident, where the majority of the film is either set in the claustrophobic canyon where Aron is trapped, or within Aron's memories, exploring different events that happened in his life. We felt that this film had the claustrophobic effect that we wanted to achieve within our film, while also adding some thrilling elements which we also aimed to achieve.

2.'The Descent'

'The Descent is another film produced by Lionsgate however this film focuses more on the horror elements. The movie stars Natalie Mendoza and Shauna MacDonald, and follows a group of girls who go to explore a cave system, however, while down there they find much more than they expected in the form of flesh eating monsters. While the film is unlike ours in the fact it is a horror movie, the thrilling elements are still present, and the cave system prove to offer a truly immersive claustrophobic effect, which we wanted to replicate in our filming.

3. 'Buried'

'Buried' is a film starring Ryan Reynolds which explores the story of a man captured by insurgents in the Middle East, who bury him alive, with a cell phone, a lighter and a limited supply of oxygen. While the film is extremely similar to ours, we would want to focus more on the motives of the murderer, and why he is doing these things. However, we took various ideas from the film, as we felt that it achieved the feeling of terror and the claustrophobic feel of being buried, something that we wanted to achieve in our own thriller.

How Would Your Film Fit Into The Ethos Of The Company?

Lionsgate's history of producing smaller budget, yet very successful films is consistent, for example, '127 Hours' production budget was $18 million while it earned approximately $60 million. We would want our film to settle in between the smaller yet successful films, such as the 'SAW' franchise, which originally cost $1.8 million to produce, yet made around $800 million worldwide. However, we did not think our film would be as popular as 'SAW' and with the upcoming 'Hunger Games' movie being released, we felt that our film would be a smaller side project for Liongate, who could use the 'Tent Pole' strategy to generate the budget for our film, after arguably one of the most popular films being released.

http://www.lionsgate.com/ Lionsgate Website Link

How Would You Place Your Product?

While we would not have a huge budget for our marketing campaign, we feel that using social media such as 'Facebook' or 'Twitter' could prove to be extremely useful in creating an interactive campaign to build anticipation for our movie. Taking ideas from 'The Dark Kight Rises' and it's interactive campaign that rewarded viewers for taking part, with small content from the films. However we would need to build from scratch as the 'Dark Knight Rises' already had a large following from the giant franchise.

Do They (Lionsgate) Specialize In Your Type Of Film?

Lionsgate have produced and distributed a diverse selection of genres, however, we would use their expertise with thrillers such as 'Buried' and '127 Hours' to distribute our film as they have experience with making films successful. The films have used the similar claustrophobic element within many of their films before, therefore, we would need to draw from their experience, and use it to our advantage when producing our film.